Sunshine on my toast

Well, not yet, but soon, soon! I'm going to open the first jar this morning.

Yesterday was a long, difficult day, interrupted in the middle by about three hours of marmalade-making. The parentheses were a funeral in the morning and – you guessed it – shoveling and more shoveling in the afternoon.

The snow fell almost all day, turning to rain and then sleet in the late afternoon. We now have snow crusted with ice. I could probably get a great workout building another snowman; the snow is very heavy. (I'll do anything to not lift weights. Heh. KIDDING!)

Marmalade is quite the labor-intensive process compared to, oh, strawberry preserves or even zucchini relish. (Those are the only two things I canned last year.) Strawberries are easy to crush, and a food processor makes quick work of shredding vegetables for relish. For marmalade, the oranges need to be peeled, the white pith needs to be scraped from the peels, the white membrane needs to be removed from the orange sections and the peel needs to be finely sliced into a million little shreds. And all of that needs to be done by hand. My hands. Heh.

I figured if I wasn't doing all that, I'd be shoveling snow. My preference was to stand in front of the kitchen window watching the snow while I worked. Actual cooking time was pretty short – 35 minutes altogether.

Was it worth all the work? I'll let you know tomorrow!